Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I’ve done it! KL Marathon Yataa!

YES I’ve done 21km, the longest distance ever achieved!

I was so excited on the night before the race till I only got 4 hours sleep (intended for 7h sleep at least). I set my alarm to go off at 3.30am but I jumped up earlier at 3am (I hate it when you get all excited like this!).

The organizer was kind enough to arrange for a special shutter bus which operates from 3am onwards, from various pick up points. 2 of my colleagues and I took the Bkt Jalil one at 5am.

I really did pack light, evidence.
kl_marathon bus
Our bus came on time, however, Axiao complained that their bus only came 45min later. The bus journey was so smooth that we got there a little too very early.

We have plenty of time to get our bags checked in and clear our bladders. We even have time to do a 2 round the field jog warm up.

While lining up at the starting line, I suddenly the urge to go to the toilet again, the excitement must be getting my nerves. However, looking behind me were about 1500 people so I decided to just go with a full tank. The same thing happened to me during the towerthon though.

Upon reaching the first water station which was about 10min away only, only 2 toilet available but later came to realize that the trees along the road are also toilets for the guys (more than 6 trees available).

The race started with a slight drizzle which was quite refreshing which made running smooth and breezed. I broke my record for a 10km stretch at under 1h which I usually take 1h 10min on flat ground.

An ~5m distance shower was provided at around Hang Tuah station. I’m just wondering who the hell needs a shower that will only add weight to their run and might cause blister easily with the wet shoes. In my opinion, it is a waste of water with only 1/50 using it. They could have installed a mist shower like those you find in mamak fan instead.

The route got tougher as we reached the first flyover from MAA turning into Jln Istana. The stretch from Jln Istana –> Jln Parliament was all steep + another flyover. My legs lack of practice on slopes gave way before the flyover which was 3/4 away from the finish line.

Once I’ve reached the last 3km point, I pushed myself to finish as my target time is about up (2.5h). I was smiling when I saw the clock at the finishing line printing 2h 30min 10s!kl_marathon running to finish

I have finished the race in:

2h 30min 40s

The start and finish line. The second clock from the right is the 21km time.
kl_marathon start finish line

I was so thirsty and tired after the finishing line that I sort of made a quick walk to grab for some isotonic drink and some banana. I met my colleagues around the 100plus corner and asked to get them all a yellow stick each:kl_marathon banana gang

Karen was together with her bf running 10km, aw such a sweet couple. Eh… no no I was suppose to say: spot spiderman! kl_marathon spiderman
It is Mawar Sahlan again! Myave you guess that he is young but no he is 69 years old uncle! He has been running with Spiderman suit at run quite a number of marathon races. This time he participated the 10km run. Read more at NST.

The race indeed have 12,000 participant.
kl_marathon

The queue to baggage collection was terribly long like 3 long python attacking one booth. Many people utilized the bag provided by the organizer so it was difficult to spot the owner’s bag. I was smart to bring a different bag Big Grin

Finisher medal marks me completing the half marathon:
kl_marathon finisher medal
There is one thing that I didn’t like about the race is that the medal should be given on the spot when you pass the finisher line instead of the long queue at the end. Well maybe they have their reason to get their chip back but some people get to keep theirs… I wonder if it works.

The half marathon gang from Sony:
kl_marathon half marathon-ers
Oops Axio is still on her way back but we are using her camera now Tongue… Heheh…

I met a few guys while lining up for the bag and talk for a bit about marathon. They told me that I had used the wrong shoe for marathon. I’ve used a cross-training shoe Nike Air Max 180.

nike_air_max_180+III

Which will lead to:
kl_marathon blister

Actually, there were a few major complains from the participant includes:
1. Drink station dried up before race finish. Axiao experienced this.
2. Local winner were not crowned local champion, …

This is my first Marathon and the experience was fantastic beside the medal distribution method. Maybe to avoid from the mentioned complain is to avoid running first and the last. Tongue

After the race, I had a feeling that I can achieve anything. Maybe next I shall go for a try for something more extreme like bungy jumping at sunway.
bungee jump
The thought came crashing when my father said 2h 30min? If you don’t finish within 2h 30min then you are not a marathon runner. He say his 21km time was 1h 45min. I was like erm… so spoil… Heheh but it’s alright! I shall beat that and aim for a 42km as well…

Oh yea… I’ve almost forgot that Hew and me did signed up for the King of the Road race. 11km for 50min qualifying time. That’s a target to beat!Registering King of the road
Notice that both of us are signing up for the T-Shirt. Winking The package comes with 2 x RM50 voucher to be used for purchase of shoe worth more than RM250 (one voucher per shoe). I think I’m making use of it to get a correct shoe at least!

Feel like joining? You better act quick, the closing date is 3rd of July. Click here

Resting,

--Catfish--

PS: Photos courtesy of Axiao, Hew, Goh and Helmut. Thanks!

Monday, June 29, 2009

KL Marathon: Getting Pumped Up!

Yippie! Choong Hoe have conquered 21km at KL Marathon!

I shall talked about today’s event later… I’m too tired and exhausted to blog all in one… Well partially because I don’t have the photos. Hehehe the runner’s guide book told us to pack light… So I shall talk about the registration day instead -->

T-1 (a day before the race)

Dataran Medeka was rather convenient for me as I’ll only need to hop on to STAR LRT and get to Masjid Jamek, 3min walk away. Tsen and I were there first.

We received phone call from the rest of my colleagues when we are not far from Masjid Jamek saying that their car robbed in Titiwangsa park and they are at the police station. 2 person lost a phone and couch wallet each worth up to RM1000.

Advise: Please be careful when you are to park your car at any parks. If possible, use plastic bags to keep valuable in your pockets and pack light… Remember…

As soon as Tsen and I arrived at the field, we were greeted warmly by the officials there who directed us to our respective booth. I would say it was quite organized, trust me big sign boards everywhere:kl_marathon_registration
Well I guess that got a pretty big field anyway…

The officials at the counter were nice and friendly. I was pretty satisfied with their service, the collection process took about 3min each (pretty fast I would say). I’m not sure about the day before as it was raining and were suffering from some computer glitch.
kl_marathon 10km registration

I like the bag that were given to us, it’s huge…
kl_marathon goodie bag
RapidKL special shutter bus were also available for the price of RM7 which includes one day pass on all public transport (STAR, PUTRA and RAPIDKL).

This make it convenient for those that are running full and half marathon which starts at 5am and 6am respectively. No public transport are available at that time + all the roadblocks.

Breathe Right were taking advantage of the event to promote their product. I would say it do work for me when I’m suffering from running nose as I do have it quite often. And yes it is not only to solve snoring problem.
kl_marathon breathe right

100 plus set up some rock climbing and basketball activity booth. Is the rock climbing practical? Will the participant try it out? I don’t think so… Who would want to hurt themselves before the race?
kl_marathon 100plus sports

Hew and me were so hyped up with the KL marathon that we end up joining for the Shah Alam Adidas King of Road Marathon on the spot. Despite the orange color, the shirt is of good quality. RM30 is quite worth it! 
adidas king of the road
Both of us joined the 11km race. Why not 22km? The qualifying time 11km is 50min which is quite a challenge for both of us. As you can see my training time for 11km is more than 1h.

Lots of toilet are provided. Unlike Towerthon with only 4 provided (I think), the queue was so damn long till I was forced to run with a full tank.
kl_marathon toilet1

The toilets are decent. I was fascinated by the manual pump (observe the 2 round black rubber on the floor of the toilet. One for the flush and one for the tap.
kl_marathon toilet 2

Helmut and me give it a go at the toilets and came out asking each other did we snap the same thing and we laughed about it:
kl_marathon_toilet

Me all fired up for the longest run that I had ever participated so far:
kl_marathon_half marathon counter

 

Regards,

-- Catfish --

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Action Pack Day 3: Dealing with Fire.

To finally end our anniversary day, we decided to have something very dangerous.

Deng~ Deng~ Deng~

Something that can burn your pants when you lie (As the saying goes: Liar, Liar pants on fire) or scald your skin till you look like Patrick from Spongebob Square Pants cause you get all pink.

We are having… (cue drum roll)

Steamboat + BBQ … Thinking (no roll eye emoticons with yahoo messenger one)

Hehe.. Don’t roll your eyes.. It is very dangerous, we could pour hot boiling water to all patrons if we decided to run amok or potentially burn the place down with our stove.

Oh wait, that can’t happen either cause we are using electronic stove. But never mind, I can go burning things as far as the electrical cord allow. Winking

Fireman BBQ Pot

Ok ok… enough crapping.. Back to official business..

We found ‘Fireman’ in the curve. We actually wanted to try the Ayam Penyet restaurant which is next door but that place is always full. Yawn
Fireman Restaurant

Then we saw on the chalkboard there:

BBQ + Steamboat promotion for only RM19.90… Wee~ Let’s try.

As you can see from the stove picture above, this is like an alternative to the famous Thai Bar-B-Q Plaza. Here they use the same idea but improvise their concept to a more Malaysian-ize way of eating.

First it is HALAL! wee~ rejoice.

So instead of Pork Lard in BBQ Plaza, they use Chicken skin to oil the grill. Fireman BBQ Chicken Skin

Erm, not effective at all I must say.The purpose to oil the pan is to prevent the food from sticking to the grill but the chicken skin is sticking all over the grill. At wits end(no sweat emoticons either.. hmm..)

Then we come to the sauces. Looks similar to BBQ Plaza also. With the brown sauce, garlic, chopped chili and lime. The one in the bowl tasted like peanut sauce. On the saucer is the sweet and chili sauce.Fireman BBQ sauce

In BBQ plaza, the correct way to eat is to mix up all the ingredient in the brown sauce. But we are confuse as to which sauce we need to add the ingredient since we have 2 brown sauce and both tasted different. So we ask the waiter on what’s the best way to deal with this, they just shrugged and mumbled up to us. (hmm.. does this sound like they are copying just for he sake of copying)

Next up is the menu. Click for closer inspection. Fireman Restaurant Buffet Menu

Here the difference is they have marinated meat.

This is our first round. We proceed to order another 3 rounds of black peppered lamb, prawn, Chicken Turmeric and Chicken Nam Yee. Nice~
Fireman BBQ order

One tip: Look at the dessert part. CINCAU! The kiam siap part of me is skipping cause we can now even save on drinks. Good thing is free flow.. wuahahahha…

One thing I like about this place is their grill/steamboat pan. The steamboat part is actually wide enough to keep us satisfied with the volume of soup and also most importantly, it can fit a soup spoon for easy scooping.

Fireman BBQ1

Oh, they have tom yam soup base as well for an additional of RM5.00. We didn’t take it this time because the chicken soup comes for free.. and it tasted very good actually.

All in all, we enjoyed the experience. Good deal with the promotion.

Fireman BBQ Restaurant 
Location: 131, 6 Jalan PJU 7/3, Mutiara Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya.
(http://www.firemanbbq.com.my/)

Food: 4/5 nibbles. (the food in BBQ Plaza is fresher)
Cleanliness: 3.5/5 nibbles (The ventilation is non existent)
Pricing: 4/5 nibbles
Service: 3.5/5 nibbles ( Thye don’t understand English. Most potential customer leave the place when they did not get the information they want)

 

Fired up,

PW.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Free Movie @ GSC Tropicana City

Just got back from Cameron Highlands with my family. I’m impressed wth Sunny boy again, still able to catch up with Hyundai Accent…

Hahah anyway, when we got back, my bro was like running to me and said GSC is giving out free tickets…

Yes… GSC Tropicana City has already opened…

and

Yes… They are giving out free tickets:tropicana_city_free_screening
It’s not the latest movie but decent ones. I wonder what will happen to this new cinema at 7am if Transformer is offered as free Thinking

To get your free movie, print this coupon:tropicana_city_free_movie_coupon
Read the terms and condition properly ya…

The location (click for larger image):
tropicana_city_mall_location

Can anyone tell me how to get here? I’m confused…

More info:
Promotion: http://www.gsc.com.my/RD1/news2.asp?search=tropicana_coming

GSC Tropicana City info: http://www.gsc.com.my/RD1/cinemas2.asp?search=tcm

 

Happy hunting,

--Catfish--

PS: sad that I might not be able to get any… 20 & 21 June were at Camerons and 22 &23 June working…

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Action Pack Day 2 : Battle of the Movie

Let the battle continues…

It had been a very busy and tiring month of May with all weekends occupied. We had not much time to go for any outings ourselves. Even for our regular movies.

We have missed out quite a few movies since the Monster Vs Aliens, Confession of Shopaholic and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Hahah I always call it Pall Mall by mistake. Free branding for BAT. Tongue).

To make up for it, we manage to cram all the latest must watch movie in 2 weeks.

It started of with X-MEN origins: Wolverine, watched it in Midvalley since most of the other cinema already stop screening.

Wolverine was an enjoyable movie but the story line is quite thin… The actions alone was worth watching!
x-men-origins-wolverine

PW was very eager to watch Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian ever since our movie spree started again but due to X-MEN movie was phasing out so… As promised, the next show:
night_at_the_museum_2
For those who had watched the first one, you would tend to expect more from it. Can’t help it as certain element of surprise and shock factor was already gone.

The humor is still as good. The best move of the director was to focused more on the new character by locking the previous movie’s character up. Hehehe… I love the Abraham Lincoln and ‘The Thinker’. This movie is recommended for those who are looking for a good laugh!

To enjoy the movie more, my advice is to skip the trailer. It seems the best part are already captured there.

Next up was my pick –> Star Trek. It is booked in my must watch list since I watched the trailer last year in cinema. The character’s appearance is 10 times better than the old series make up.
star-trek
I must say this is a must watch movie! You’ll have to watch it to feel the actions. Initially PW was a bit reluctant stating reason that she didn’t know any background story. Her comment after the movie: “ Live Long and Prosper”  V(-.-)

Well, I know I’m out of topic… (sorry for my ‘long gas’ again)…

As for the action pack day, of course we will opt for an action pack movie. The only one left in our to watch list was Terminator Salvation.

As soon as we got to Cathay ticket counter after the Esprit warehouse, we were thinking that the hope is slim of getting any movie ticket. The queue length was from the counter till the wall behind even with 80% of the counters open!!!

While queuing up, I came up with a bizarre idea of opting for Cathay Platinum movie suite. The idea was terminated after I got the ticket price which was RM40 per person.

Fortunately, despite the queue volume, we still get our ticket.
TerminatorSalvation
Terminator Salvation is a sequel to the Terminator 3: Judgement day. In my opinion, the movie is over rated by the reviews that I had read in the newspapers. There were no good story line or plot, everything was so predictable. PW was half the time confused Confused. The most surprised part was special appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger with no more than 10 min.

The idea of going for a movie at Cathay’s Platinum Movie Suite is still fresh so I got back and researched more on it. Apparently, it have less seats as opposed to GSC gold class with only 12 pair of seats in a room (more private).Cathay_platinum

From the Cathay cinema website, I found that Monday – Wednesday is RM25 per person which is quite a reasonable price for the luxury. Beside this, there is also a XBox gaming station, Ogawa massage chair and also WIFI available in the movie lounge. How cool is that?

The only drawback: no blanket and pillow provided, you’ll need to rent it…

Well, I will give it a try when there is a movie worth watching in Platinum Class. Maybe Transformer…

Check out more on Cathay Platinum here.

 

Cheers,

--Catfish & PW--

Friday, June 19, 2009

Action Pack Day : Battle 1

I know! I know! We are skipping a day or two with blogging.

My parents are back from Brunei for holidays. I’ve got to spend some time with them.

Miss me?

14th June is our anniversary day. Confused with all the anniversary date? Hahaha.. We made a promise to celebrate on every 14th of the month to keep our relationship fresh and eventful… Something simple will do, an outing or just a dinner… As long as we are spending some time together, we are happy.

So on the 14th Sunday, our day was spent in The Curve and somehow, our activities tends to connect to some sort of adventure or require some physical aggressiveness.

First event: We heard about the Esprit Warehouse sales from my colleagues during the weekdays so we thought of checking it out. The sales was from 11-14 June 2009 but we were only too lazy to go and procrastinate until the very last day Tongue.

The sales condition there was like a pasar malam with piles of clothes everywhere with prices and discount posters all over the place. The crowd there was okay, not as bad as the Zara or FJ Benjamin warehouse sale recently. At least you can still stand and choose without being push or elbow by someone.

From the picture below it looks like there are lots of clothes to choose from but in reality much to our disappointment, most of the racks are just repetitive. Is this because we were there on the last day so only limited stocks are left? Please enlighten me.

After one or 2 piles, PW got fed up and decided to employ the luck strategy. She just randomly stick her hand in every pile and see if she can find any hidden treasure. (PW: I found one gorgeous jacket that is formal enough to be worn to work but also suitable for casual outing. It was one size too big.. Crying
Esprit Warehouse sales1

In the place, there is only 2 fitting rooms available and the queue got longer and fatter like it has taken “Appeton Weight Gain”.

However, they are kind enough to provide mirrors around the place. This is good, I found a shirt I like and decided to just try it out with the mirrors.

But I had a hard time getting a fair view of the mirror. Hmmph~ girls and aunties kept hogging the mirror. They seem to hover around pretending there is no queue. PW mention that it was caused I’m a guy and girls will tend to bully the guy a bit in this situation. This is after all their territory.

The final stage of the war was continues with the paying queue to get to the spartan at the cashier:
Esprit Warehouse sales2

In 2 hours, mission completed with total damage of RM256 (with 25% off all items + additional 10% with HSBC credit card) for 7 items gathered.

 

Treasure Looters,

--Catfish & PW--


P/S: Battle 2, To be continue…